Sunset laws become permanent – especially fiscal policy.

Both the Bush tax cuts and the Trump administration’s tax cuts impact the deficit because both result in a revenue decrease coinciding with taxing decrease.90 The tax cuts, despite the negative deficit impact, were passed with sunset provisions because the legislation lacked the necessary sixty votes from the Senate.91 Sunset provisions have proven to be the key for parties that lack the necessary majority and the requisite votes to otherwise pass legislation. With sunset provisions, these laws can exist in perpetuity, using the simple majority to continuously pass, impacting the deficit, without the procedurally required super majority.

Once the date of expiration arrived, however, the laws did not sunset as their original manifestation dictated. In 2010, President Obama extended the cuts for another two years, seeking to avert a sudden and dramatic tax increase on American families in the middle of an economic recovery during the recession period.92 The final matter of President Bush’s Tax Act was settled in 2012 when Congress decided which cuts would be made permanent and which would expire, known as the “fiscal cliff” deal.93 The deal made permanent the vast majority of the Bush tax cuts. One estimate found that 82 percent of the Bush tax cuts were made permanent in 2012, meaning a meager 18 percent actually expired, or sunset, as originally intended.94 Despite initial opposition from many Democrats, the fiscal cliff deal passed with large bipartisan majorities in both the House and the Senate, and avoided a significant increase on the tax burden of households making under $250,000.95 With the new Tax Act, when the time comes for the law to sunset, the actuality of such seems less than optimistic. It will likely depend on how the economy is doing at the time. The recent projections for the nation’s deficit and high interest payments paint a dreary picture for the future and the ability of the country to overcome such daunting fiscal setbacks.